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'Lop Nur' (also 'Lake Lop', 'Lop Nuur') is a group of small, now seasonal salt lake sand marshes between the Taklamakan and Kuruktag deserts in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China.
The lake system into which the Tarim River empties is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, which once covered more than 10,000 square kilometers in the Tarim Basin. Lop Nur is hydrologically endorheic— it is landbound and there is no outlet. Though it was determined to be a single salt lake by ancient Chinese geographers, the lake system has largely dried up from its 1928 measured area of 3,100 km², and the desert has spread by windblown sandy loess. This has shifted the lake system 30 to 40 km westwards during the past 40 years.^[1] A partial cause for the destabilization of the desert has been the cutting of poplars and willows for firewood; in response, a reserve was established in 2003 to preserve 3,520 square kilometres of poplar.^[2]

Contents

History

Gallery

See also

Footnotes

External links

History

Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom of Loulan, an ancient Chinese civilization along the Silk Road, which skirted the lake-filled basin. Loulan became a client-state of the Chinese empire in 55 BCE, renamed Shanshan. Once the lake also supported a thriving Tocharian culture. Archaeologists have discovered the buried remains of settlements, as well as several of the Tarim mummies, along its ancient shoreline. Marco Polo passed near the lake, and the explorers Ferdinand von Richthofen, Nikolai Przhevalsky and Sven Hedin visited the area.^[3] It is also likely that Swedish soldier Johan Gustaf Renat had visited the area when he was helping the Zunghars to produce maps over the area in the eighteenth century.^[4]
The first Chinese nuclear bomb test, codenamed "596", was tested at Lop Nur in 1964. Since 1964, the lake has been used as a nuclear test site. Until 1996, 45 nuclear tests were conducted. The headquarters of the test base is at Malan, about 125 km northwest of Qinggir.^[5]
On June 13, 1996, famous Chinese explorer Yu Chunshun died while trying to walk across Lop Nur.

Gallery

See also

★ Lop Desert

★ Tarim Basin

Footnotes

1. Desert Intrudes upon Tarim Lake

2. Tarim River Ecological Protection Suggested

3. The Wandering Lake

4. August Strindberg, "En svensk karta över Lop-nor och Tarimbäckenet" (in Swedish)
5. Lop Nor Nuclear Weapons Test Base

External links

★ Map of the Lop Nur nuclear test facility

★ Lop Nor Nuclear Weapons Test Base

★ Satellite imagery of the Lop Nur nuclear test facility

★ Lop Desert